Writing with the Dekalb Wrimos

October 31st is my favorite day of the year. No, not because it's Halloween, though the candy is a bonus, but because the thirty-first of October is NaNo-Eve in my circle of friends. NaNo, short for NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) takes place during the thirty days of November, and participants all over the world write a 50,000 word novel during that time. Crazy? Yes. Fun? Definitely. It's my month of adventure, my yearly additional Christmas. Words, typing, characterization, plotting, dangling modifiers, and the inevitable random character death all get me in a tizzy every year. However, if there had to be one thing that brought everything together and made my NaNoWriMo experience the absolute best, that would be my writing group based out of Dekalb, Illinois, the Dekalb Wrimos.

Events and Fabulous Get-Togethers
One of the best aspects of writing with the Dekalb Wrimos are the activities we do before, during, and after NaNoWriMo. Sunday afternoons are designated as write-ins where we converge on a Barnes and Noble in town and write. Candy is thrown around, as is a bit of taunting and a lot of laughter. Before and after NaNoWriMo, we hold Kick-Off and Thank God It's Over parties at a local restaurant. We eat, goof-off, and hold raffle drawings. Our first year, I remember we had only about a dozen people show up, but as the years went on, more and more attended. Last year, we had to reserve several long tables in their banquet room for the two to three dozen people that came to our parties.

Our Collage-O-Rama tradition began last year where a week or two prior to the first of November we gathered at the Dekalb library and made a collage dedicated to our proposed novel. It's a great brainstorming activity for those who have a firm grasp on their plot and characters and for those who don't know much about their novel yet. This year, in addition to our typical write-ins, parties, and Collage-O-Rama, we're taking full advantage of the fact that Halloween falls on a Saturday with NaNoWriMo beginning on Sunday by throwing a small Halloween/NaNo-Eve party. All the typical Halloween elements will be present with a frenzied episode of, "Drop everything and write!" once midnight rolls around.

Our Dekalb Wrimo events extend past the typical NaNoWriMo timeframe. After our first NaNoWriMo, our November write-ins turned into year-round write-ins. We had decided that we liked each other so much, that we couldn't bear the thought of going a year without seeing each other's faces. Currently, we meet every first, third, and fifth Sunday at the same Barnes and Noble from one to three in the afternoon. Technically, we claim we're going to spend a good chunk of that time writing, and sometimes we do, but most of the time we go off onto random tangents, joke around, and tell stories.

Treats, Goodies, and Prizes Galore!
It isn't an official Dekalb Wrimo event without candy. Our sugar of choice is Pixie Stixs, aka "Writer's Crack." We also feature buckets, literally, of left-over Halloween candy to munch on and fuel our creative juices as we write. Prizes and raffles occur at almost every event we hold. Each event we attend, we receive a raffle ticket, of which we hold onto until the very last get-together, the Thank God It's Over party, where we pick prize winners from a hat until all the prizes are gone. The prizes range from official NaNoWriMo gear, such as posters and t-shirts, to participant-contributed prizes. Last year, everybody brought at least one prize to the TGIO Party, and they ranged from the cutely-homemade and practical to the bizarre and strange.

During our official NaNoWriMo write-ins, we hold word count contests, a prize going to the two people, one typer and one hand-writer, who wrote the most amount of words. In addition to candy, word count prizes, and raffles, we fully indulge in rewarding ourselves. For even the seasoned writer, 50k words in 30 days proves to be a tad daunting. So, we reward ourselves. You reached 10k? Congratulations, you get a prize! 30k? Here, have another prize! We're all about the prizes and candy over in Dekalb.

Global Word Wars
What's better than a little bit of friendly competition? Friendly competition halfway around the World, of course! For the past four years, the entirety of the Dekalb Wrimos have engaged in a month-long word war with Perth, Australia. We have access to their forum on the NaNoWriMo website, they have access to our forum, and the taunting begins. Who will write the most words? Nobody ever knows until November 30th, though there's always speculation and a healthy dose of good-humored teasing. Over the years, though, we've developed a rapport with the Aussie writers. Last year, we exchanged NaNoWriMo care packages with each other that were packed with nothing but candy. It's was quite the experience to eat Australian candy, especially Musk Sticks.

Lifelong Friends
Some of the people I have met while doing NaNoWriMo with the Dekalb Wrimos have become some of the closest friends I have. The Dekalb Wrimos come from all over the Chicagoland area, not just Dekalb, and are from all sorts of backgrounds. We have students, teachers, artists, scientists, knitters, crafters, and of course, writers, both published and aspiring, in our group. But most importantly, we're all friends. Our personalities and senses of humor mesh extremely well, making for entertaining get-togethers and hundreds of inside jokes. I always look forward to our Sundays at Barnes and Noble and to the weeks in November when our lives are dedicated to novel writing. Nothing compares to it, and I wouldn't have it any other way.